pantoum's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUTOMOBILE EULOGY It's a good thing I get (free) Cartoon Network because CeeCee is lying on the sofa beside me, watching some cartoon with a creature called Lazlo in it. I think he's a pelican but am not sure and he talks funny. This is the first time my TV has been on in many weeks and I feel sort of guilty for planting her in front of it, but she was begging to watch her favorite show. CeeCee is a chatterbox. and precious, and really sweet—she sings all the time, even when she's taking a dump—but I'm used to spending most of my time alone and am a little exhausted by her nonstop talking. Still, what a wonderful little being. I love the curious questions she asks about the world. We had a busy day. CeeCee and Pottergrrl and I made a big breakfast, then went to a nearby farm, where we played with belted galloway (oreo) cows and fed the goats, walked around and looked at the gardens. Went to Cybrarian's after that. She and her six-year-old daughter were going to go swimming with us but her daughter didn't want to, so Pottergrrl and CeeCee and I swam a little, then we all went out for gourmet popsicles. (Hibiscus. Yum.) Then Pottergrrl had to head back to the mountains. We barely had any time alone together, but it was still a good, good weekend—intimate in atypical ways, but nevertheless intimate. I let CeeCee surf the Barbie.com website after Pottergrrl left too (must give her a lecture on appearance soon), then smoked a cigarette (which I'd wanted since Friday and especially after everyone in my family smoked after the funeral), then we went to the gardens to feed the ducks. The great blue heron was there in all her glory and CeeCee and I walked through the bamboo to get a better view. I told her we had to be very, very quiet and we tip-toed through the marsh and got practically on top of her. Gawd, what a beautiful creature! Watched her for a while and CeeCee wanted to know why she's called blue when she's really gray. I told her about her eyes changing colors and all about the blue under her wings but she didn't fly away before CeeCee's attention shifted to something else, so we climbed on the rocks and jumped back and forth across the creeks and followed the creeks up through the woods. I recognized that I was perhaps being a little overprotective—stay off the rocks, CeeCee!—so decided, Jebus, just let the kid have her bumps and bruises—can't be as bad as Lad and his skateboard mishaps. And she did. She jumped back and forth across the creeks and had the best time climbing on the rocks and saying "look how tall I am" and "take my picture" and being a little adventurer. Then I saw her untied shoelace a split second before she stepped on it and fell right onto the rocks, dipping one toe into the creek and scraping her knees and elbows. But, you know, it was a mishap and we didn't make a big deal out of it. She told me how much it hurt and we commiserated and rubbed water on her joints and all, but soon she was up leaping across the rocks again, fording the creek and enjoying more unstructured fun (which she almost never gets at my mother's house). Then we grilled hotdogs and roasted marshmallows. And then CeeCee said "I wish I could live here all the time" and "I wish Pottergrrl was still here," two lines she repeated all day. She even pretended that Pottergrrl was still in the front seat of the car when we were driving back from the gardens and stroked her imaginary hair and said "I love you" and "I wish I could live here with you and Bird." Ach. It breaks my heart—especially when she talks about her father not contacting her and her mother abandoning her and her grandmother not letting her ride her bike, even though I understand about the bike. I think Mama is just too slow and tired and scared that CeeCee will get away from her. Still, isn't that what kids need: unstructured fun out in the chaos of nature, reigned in by minimal safety? And speaking of Pottergrrl, I can't believe she gave up an entire weekend to go to South Cackylacky with me for a frigging funeral. She arrived around 9 on Friday night and then we got up at 3—very sleepy indeed—to put on our black garb and drive 5 hours to my uncle's funeral (although at least she got to sleep on the way). It was a sad funeral. He was only fifty-two and the baby brother of four, and the devastation was written on their faces. And he was a good guy who died way too young. His kids chose I Can Only Imagine, a song that Vince Gill (I think) wrote after his brother with muscular dystrophy died young. It's all about being unable to even imagine how happy his brother must be right now, surrounded by gawd's glory and walking the streets of gold, and finally completely happy. Sappy and sweet and melancholy and all, but it almost made me cry nevertheless and, for a moment, I wished I could believe it. The funeral was odd. Don's daughter married a sort of ne'er-do-well missionary and they lived in Alaska for a while, then went to Cuba or Jamaica or somewhere and taught English, then wound up living with my uncle, who helped them get on their feet again. Her missionary husband gave the eulogy and it was very off-the-cuff, just a regular guy trying to talk in front of a church full of people about something that touched him deeply. I have decided to call his comments The Automobile Eulogy because so much of it centered around Don and his penchant for buying cool old clunkers and making them run despite themselves—Don restoring a car or building a plane and climbing into it for a big adventure or Don and his crew working on his boat. At first this eulogy kind of bothered me, then I realized it was exactly what Don was like, always fixing things and creating things and leaving for the next big adventure: "Hey kids, let's build a plane and fly away in it" he'd say, or "Hey kids, let's put this motor on this go-cart and see what she will do" (a redneck trait that made me adore him). And cool! I taught CeeCee how to count to ten in Japanese on our long drive back from South Carolina—and now they're counting in Japanese on the Cartoon Network and she remembered the second, third, and forth numbers right along with them. How friggin' cool. is tha?
I promised CeeCee that we will go to my favorite coffee shop in the morning, where I will have a decaf (sigh) latte and she will have a hot chocolate. And then we'll plan our day—playing in the river or going to the science museum and butterfly house. Computergrrl wants to meet CeeCee too, so we'll have lunch together either tomorrow or Tuesday. Then it's back to South Carolina, where I need to figure out what's wrong with my mother's lawn mower. Right now, though, I just need to wrap this entry up because CeeCee will be awake very early and we'll be off on our next adventure. I will close with saying that I have not a clue how to put little girl's hair up in little barettes or clasps or whatever those things are called and we had to give up and ask Pottergrrl to do it this morning. It will be only me and CeeCee in the morning though, so she will probably look like those sad pictures of Lad and Glittergrrl the year my mother shot herself, when I had to get them ready for school and never even noticed that their hair needed cutting and so they look like disheveled little ragamuffins in their school pictures. 11:53 p.m. - 2005-07-24 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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